The biggest argument I got in with my phone-support crew, most notably my dirty and scurrilous libel-meister "Wayne Brave," was whether or not that Catherine Zeta-Jones bit between Rock and Adam Sandler was a boner. I thought she actually failed to show up, because surely that ghastly, time-murdering disaster wasn't a planned comedy bit.

I thought maybe Catherine Zeta-Jones' knees got crow-barred backstage. I'm not saying by who, but we've all seen Biggie and Tupac, and I'm just saying, the LAPD can be paid to do anything.

The best supporting actor award went to Morgan Freeman, because they owed it to him. It was his fourth nomination -- a big catch-up Oscar -- essentially, the one he should have gotten for "Driving Miss Honky." The best performance by a dude in a supporting role was actually Thomas Haden Church in "Sideways." I love Morgan Freeman, but I hate that his characters are always preternaturally wise and never allowed to have a penis. Morgan Freeman is beatific and unthreatening; an African-American whose gentle presence has done a lot to help un-frighten white people over the years, which is good, I guess. But thank God we are now ready for Jamie Foxx, who released a press announcement to the tabloids a few weeks ago that nudie "art shots" of himself were stolen from his house; one tabloid commented that the stolen photos "proved that Foxx is one of 'Hollywood's biggest stars.'" Black male sexuality has always freaked Hollywood out, so this is a good sea change.

Cate Blanchett looked put-upon and squirmy, winning the best supporting Oscar for her Hepburn impression. Cate is great, but most people agree that there are eight drag queens in any major urban area who can do a better Hepburn.

Wayne Brave proposed that all the little, non-famous, art-and technical-award people should get half-size, mini-Oscars. I felt this would aptly illustrate the eye-rolling derision and exasperated loathing the Academy felt for the people who won these awards this year. Oscar could not bring himself to let these dirty little crew people onstage, perhaps out of some Howard Hughes-like phobia that non-celebrity is contagious. Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson presented the Lesser Awards on various handicap ramps in the auditorium; a subtle semiotic way for the Academy and PricewaterhouseCooper to say, to makeup artists and sound editors, Crawl back to Culver City and fuck yourselves for sucking precious camera time away from Renée.

These people felt robbed, and why wouldn't they, having to crouch in vans or in the janitor's closet or on folding chairs in Beyoncé's portable steam room before getting shoved out into the hot lights, tossed a trophy and abruptly silenced. People looked genuinely terrified by the time constraints, this year, when it came to their speeches -- Charlie Kaufman finally clued us in that Oscar winners, during their speeches, were being shown an "intimidating" 30-second countdown clock, which I then reasoned was interspliced with subliminal pictures of a .44 Magnum, interspliced with pictures of the speech-giver's family. Anyone on the design team who didn't get to the microphone first was reduced to a sad, mute jabbing at the air toward the balcony with their statuette -- the unhappiest batch of Oscar winners in history.

The lowest point of the evening -- which was actually the high point, because it was the only thing that sucked hard enough to be actually interesting -- was Hispanic Korner, where all the Latinos were quarantined. Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz, representing the beeg teets of Meheeco and Espain, introduced one of the two musical numbers that didn't feature Beyoncé.....which shall henceforth be known as "!Banderas! : The Unquenchable Thirst for Shame."

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